Friday, 19 October 2007

Tragic decline of Ireland's Jewish community

My sources tell me that over the past 30 years or so the number of Jews in Ireland has fallen from an already tiny 5,000 to fewer than 800. Very many went to Israel, and this reduced the numbers to where a viable community, e.g. finding Jewish marriage partners, became increasingly difficult. This created a vicious circle whereby every decline in numbers simply added to the problem, and more emigrated to the UK and the US where viable communities could be found.

As happens everywhere, Jews in Ireland made a contribution vastly disproportionate to their numbers, in virtually every field. Now we must do without their doctors, scientists, lawyers (OK, we could live with that) academics and entrepreneurial genius. BUT NOT TO WORRY! We have a torrent of Nigerian gangsters, Romany thieves and Muslim fanatics to compensate.